The present disclosure relates to channel management in a wireless digital network. In particular, the present disclosure relates to channel load advertisement to network devices in wireless networks.
Wireless networks, such as networks operating under Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards, are spreading in their popularity and availability. With such popularity, however, come problems of communication channel management. Specifically, since many clients on the same wireless communication channel may share and compete for channel access, network performance typically depends on the number of clients that share the wireless communication channel within a given radio frequency neighborhood. Thus, it is advantageous to distribute clients to span across different wireless communication channels in a given radio frequency neighborhood.
IEEE 802.11 standard has established a task group, 802.11e, to cope with the needs of real time traffic over wireless networks, including Quality of Service (QoS) demanding services such as Video on demand, Voice over IP (VoIP), gaming, etc. IEEE 802.11e standard extends the existing IEEE 802.11 standard by adding new functions targeting both differentiated and integrated services. The QoS enhanced network devices in compliance with IEEE 802.11e standard can cope with real-time traffic that is delay-sensitive, jitter-sensitive, error-prone, etc., such as voice and video streams.
IEEE 802.11e standard includes an element, i.e., QoS enhanced basic service set (QBSS), which is a part of beacon frames generated by QoS enhanced network devices and contains information on current traffic situation. Nevertheless, the information on the current traffic situation in the QBSS element usually cannot accurately reflect the load of a given wireless communication channel. Therefore, it is advantageous to provide an improved way of calculating channel load in a given neighborhood and advertising it through, for example, a QBSS element under IEEE 802.11e standard.